Naïve listener judgements of speech sound change during speech intervention for children with cleft palate ± lip using a Visual Analogue Scale, compared to expert ratings

Monitoring the speech therapy progress of children with cleft palate ± lip (CP±L) is important for clinical decision-making. Existing approaches, such as Percentage target Consonants Correct (PCC) or narrow phonetic transcription, each present challenges in implementation. Visual Analogue Scales (VAS) have been successfully used by naïve listeners to evaluate disordered speech, but not speech of children with CP±L, which is the purpose of the present study. 120 naïve listeners were presented with words produced by two children with CP±L during consecutive therapy sessions. VAS evaluations of the target consonants in word-initial position were compared to the PCC ratings and narrow phonetic transcriptions of a cleft specialist Speech and Language Therapist. Results suggest that VAS captured gradient changes, which were not captured by PCC, and not as easy to interpret from the narrow phonetic transcriptions.